Orchard Road French Restaurant Set Lunch : Elan Revisited

Orchard Road French restaurant Elan is an “upper-middle” French restaurant in Shaw Centre. Part of the Les Amis restaurant group, it has a touch of luxury but without the bells and whistles of the 3 Michelin star flagship Les Amis restaurant a few doors away.

Orchard Road French Restaurant Set Lunch

Priced at $70++, the Orchard Road French Restaurant set lunch menu of Elan is not cheap. But in the context of the increasing prices everywhere in Singapore, it is not too bad. We like the firm price of $70 which applies to everything on the set lunch menu without any additional payments for some choices. The bad news is that, since our lunch in March 2023, they seem to have recently increased the price to $75++ as at the time of this post. ☹️

Here is a sample page from the Elan restaurant a la carte menu. We decided to go with a set lunch as the $70 price for a 3 course lunch plus coffee seemed like good value for money in a good Orchard Road French restaurant. We also picked an additional item from the regular menu.

Elan Restaurant Set Lunch – Starters

For our starters we had the foie gras (picture above) and grilled prawns. Both were very good and beautifully presented. We had the same starters at a previous visit months ago when Elan first opened. You can tell how much we like these dishes.

Main Courses at Elan: Orchard Road French Restaurant

For main course we tried something different on this visit : lobster linguine. The presentation of this dish looked somewhat untidy, but the taste of both the pasta and lobster were good. The sauce provided was “crustacean sauce” which coated the linguine with a rich, oily seafood flavour.

We also had steak on this visit. We would have really liked to try something different but the remaining items did not look that interesting. So it was steak again. We do not get tired of this item as well.

Quail from the A La Carte Menu

Feeling a bit more adventurous that day, and the fact that we had some nice wines available, we also picked an additional item from the a la carte menu – quail ($58). The roasted quail breast and a “lollipop” of its legs did not contain a lot of meat. But what it lacked in quantity, it made up with quality. The flavour was deep and rich without being gamey. We were happy with our selection from the menu.

Dessert and Cheese

Our choices for the last course of our lunch at this modern Orchard Road French restaurant were cheese selection and carrot gateau. We often pick cheese platters when they are available at set lunches as they offer a wide selection to choose from.

This is a picture of our cheese selection. I cannot remember what exactly the types of cheese were. They had different intensities and textures. Very enjoyable.

The carrot cake was light and soft, a more traditional dessert to enjoy with the coffee.

Wines of the Day

Elan restaurant has a “one for one” corkage policy. This time we came prepared. We purchased a bottle of white wine from the restaurant – 2019 William Fèvre Petit Chablis. According to a quick internet search, normal Chablis has greater complexity, and therefore aging potential. Petit Chablis is said to be lighter, and is expected to be enjoyed young. A light refreshing wine is always a good companion for lunch in hot tropical Singapore.

The wine we brought from home was a 2013 Thibault Liger Corton “Les Renardes” Grand Cru. According to the wine maker’s website, 1004 bottles of this red Burgundy were produced and this is a description of it: “…This wine has a great depth and it is necessary to tame it to sense it perfectly… This appellation is well known as Renardes, because its wines are always very rich with animal, leather and black fruit notes.” We ordered the quail partly because of this wine. They complemented each other perfectly.

Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 5
Value: 4
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

élan Restaurant 
Shaw Centre
1 Scotts Road #01-13
Singapore 228088

Tel: +65 6735 6656

Opening Hours:
Monday to Saturday
Lunch: 12 pm to 2 pm (last walk-in)
Dinner: 6.30 pm to 10 pm (last walk-in)
closed on Sunday

Nearest MRT Station: Orchard

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The Ordinary Patrons | Real Dining Experience of Ordinary People
an independent Singapore food blog